Plastic With Die-Cast Parts, Chapter Two

The grand old hives at the top of Flaban made Neetra think of tall townhouses, so steeply did they taper to the shape of gable-ends. Overhanging compartments resembling bow-windows all but touched one another over the narrow alleyways between, whose chitinous surfaces took on in Neetra’s eyes the texture of cobblestones. She didn’t know whether certain kinds of long-settled communities were the same the universe over, or whether she was reading things through her own Earthen lens, but the whole place made her say Dumas. Even if it was a bit of a stretch to picture maggoty musketeers crossing swords in those streets.

It wasn’t Nottingham. But these days, Neetra thought to herself, where was?

Nor did she know how the daughter of a Clan Chief reached her age without ever having had a dinner of state, but her first had gone just fine. There’d not been a single Cardinal Richelieu lurking among the luminaries of Flaban, just Wodding and a dozen other fat jolly caterpillars resplendent in smart suits like his. Neetra had delighted them when one such Monsieur de Treville courteously moved the conversation along to why they were owed the pleasure of her company in the first place? Duly she’d replied she was here to search Wodding’s store for a toyline which hadn’t been heard of since the present generation of graduate Mini-Flashes were starting entry-level, and she didn’t know who’d made it or what it was called.

How heartily the rotund Rotarians had guffawed to a grub at this. The only thing was, Neetra had a feeling they’d thought it was a joke.

Now she was back in her hotel-room, brushing her hair with the window open. Evenings on Flaban apparently smelled sweetly of warm wet hay. There was Mini-Flash Robin’s knock on the door, so Neetra called out that he could come in.

Oh, she’d forgotten he’d not seen her since she started getting ready. His reaction to her party-dress made her think for the second time that day of Plunder Dacks. Not that she even knew him or Petunia at all well, having only met them during the Nereynis Incident and its immediate aftermath, but he and Mini-Flash Robin seemed very much of a piece. The latter was perceptibly on the brink of a screamed “Yoopy yoo!” to rival the former’s finest.

“You’re fickle, Robin, but I won’t tell Jen,” Neetra promised. “Now let’s go take that walk.”

At the opposite boundary of town was a wide still pool, beyond which arable fields stretched flat to the horizon. Far off over the water, giant spindly-legged agricultural machines clicked through this realm of deepening shadow, harvesting the resource which conferred on Flaban its pervasive summery aroma. This the titans were busily baling and piling into straight-sided megaliths, which at Neetra and Mini-Flash Robin’s distance looked like milestones marking out the level landscape. By the banks of the pool was a quiet place for two small humanoids to sit in their skirts and watch as warm night gradually took possession of the planetoid.

Overhead in a pale shading sky, the girls of Flaban were coming out to play. They were like lanterns dotting the dusk, limpid lights of primrose and apricot which danced with a kind of dainty detachment on lukewarm thermals high above the street. Their slender arms and legs were elaborately frilled like those of tropical fish, and these transparent extremities glowed soft and waved slow in the barely perceptible updraft. Neetra found it fascinating that Wodding’s race had the second gender too, and especially that their females should have turned out so different to the males. Truly, there was more here that would interest Joe than the prospect of wind-up musical monsters.

One of the girls trod near, all of a delicate blossom-tint. So light were her fanning fins that it was hard to say where she ended and the hay-scented air began. She flitted before Mini-Flash Robin a minute, tiny toes posing in the ether under his nose, either oblivious to how this might make the flightless boy feel or doing an accomplished job of pretending she was.

Neetra had to admit, she saw a resemblance. Robin meanwhile, with his lover’s eyes, was doubtless seeing nothing but. And speaking of whom.

“So, I said we needed to have a quick chat, Robin,” Neetra began, sending the Flaban girl shooting skyward as if she’d bellowed a threat of violence at her. “All it is – ”

“Please, let me say something first,” put in Mini-Flash Robin shyly. “Just that I think you’re totes the nicest leader I’ve ever had. Fancy getting a chap the very action figure he wanted!”

“I’m not your leader, Robin,” Neetra reminded him. “How many times do Joe and I have to tell you Mini-Flashes that? I led The Flash Club when I had to, because it was war. But The Four Heroes’ cause isn’t about leaders.”

“Well, even so,” said the other stoutly, and blinked his eyes at her in affection. Neetra for a moment thought of Flashthunder.

“I’m ever so glad you like the action figure,” she resumed. “Now here’s the thing. When we get back to Nottingham, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t show it to Jen. Please don’t even tell her there are Four Heroes toys out. She…”

Neetra hesitated.

“She had a tough time in that battle,” was her eventual choice of words. “You see, Robin, I do find these action figures interesting, but a part of me’s a little bit mad at the manufacturers too. They’re making money out of giving the impression what we do’s all fun and games. On my planet they’d have needed permission, from me or Joe I guess, and we’d both have said no right away. Their so-called Limb Four range is only going to bring back painful memories Jenny’s trying hard to cope with.”

Neetra hoped her companion would understand what little she’d been able to share. “Now, if I go to bed and leave you here, can I trust you not to run off with a Flaban girl?” she teased him.

Mini-Flash Robin blushed and grinned.

“Still can’t thank you enough,” he stumbled on. “Some things, chap can look at and wonder if he’s up to living without. Felt totes poorly from it all afternoon. Then when I saw her there on my pillow where you’d left her…!”

Neetra wanted to giggle, and tell him it was just five pieces of plastic jointed together. Yet she knew, not so much from Mini-Flash Robin’s words as the expression of bliss on his face, that it was far more than that to him. Were toys and other inanimate objects incapable of being thus, or were this irrelevant to the cause of which Neetra spoke, she supposed the pair of them wouldn’t be on Flaban now in the first place.

So thinking, the little girl of The Four Heroes stood. It wasn’t the best time for Neetra to hold forth on her resolution to escape that image. She had however seen no point in getting changed again once the reception was over, not after Robin had given her such a vote of confidence. What was more, she’d been quite right. A replica of the pink feathery costume she’d worn for the first half of her stay in 2596 had indeed made a great party-dress.

END OF CHAPTER TWO